Bach:
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (1741)
Arranged for orchestra by Robin O’Neill

Bach’s music has always attracted arrangers and orchestrators – such as Stokowski, Elgar and Busoni, to name just three. Regardless of its original version, Bach’s music has an expressive power, drama and architectural logic that lend themselves well to expanded orchestral sonorities. Bassoonist and conductor Robin O’Neill buried his head in the Goldberg Variations, which he had discovered through Glenn Gould’s recordings, during the first months of the Covid lockdown. Soon after that, the idea of making an arrangement for orchestra began to obsess him as he began hearing instrumental and orchestral sonorities in the keyboard work. Since the main challenge was to reclothe the music without damaging the subtle intricacy of the piece, and after much thought and experimentation, O’Neill chose instruments that Bach himself would have recognized for the solo parts. His reinterpretation of the Goldberg Variations offers a mixture of full orchestral variations interspersed with concertante ones involving two, three or four solo instruments, at times close to St Matthew Passion-style writing. Completed during a difficult period, this arrangement was made, in the words of O’Neill, in the hope that it expresses the joy and solace that Bach’s music gives both performer and listener.